''Procession of Ants'' is a public sculpture by American artist, David Bowen, located on the

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Indiana ( ) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the south and southeast, and the Wabash Riv ...

campus, which is near downtown

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

. The sculpture can be found in the flower bed of Taylor Hall on the north side of the building. It was accessioned in 1998 as a part of a competition to create more artwork for IUPUI.

Description

''Procession of Ants'' by David Bowen is a series of 15 ants made of steel. Stretching over a span of about 20 feet, the ants travel from the east to the west and up a wall. The grounds on which the sculpture is located consists of a flower bed holding trees and gravel. The back side of each ant consists of a large bent piece of steel facing open towards the east side. The centers and heads of the ants are smaller in size with oversize bent pieces of steel attached as legs. The sculpture was both created and acquired in 1998 when Bowen won the competition to create more artworks for IUPUI.

Artist

The artist, David Bowen, works mostly with kinetic, robotic, interactive and sculptural pieces. Bowen attended

Herron School of Art and Design Herron School of Art and Design, officially IU Herron School of Art and Design, is a public university, public art school at Indiana University Indianapolis, Indiana University–Indianapolis (IUI) in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is a professional ar ...

for his undergraduate degree and he attended the University of Minnesota where he earned his MFA in 2004. He is now an assistant professor of sculpture at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. Bowen is interested in botany and the kinetic growth of organisms in relation to technology. In an interview, Bowen states that his work is based on interactive growth. In 2008, Bowen was a resident at Sculpture Space in

Utica, New York Utica () is the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most populous city in New York, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 census. It is located on the Mohawk River in the Mohawk Valley at the foot of the Adiro ...

References

{{IUPUIPublicArt Outdoor sculptures in Indianapolis Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis Public Art Collection 1998 sculptures Steel sculptures in Indiana